Passing Smog in SoCal with mods
 

Hey everyone! I am in the market of getting the Topgunz A2A Supercharger kit, but my only concern is passing smog as I live in California, which sucks! I really want to pull the trigger on the kit and some headers, but the fact that not many smog stations nowadays who are more lenient with smog. I used to go to a shop that would pass smog for my miata without checking the car at all. But now, it is really difficult to find one here, as I heard from some people that the state has new technology that plugs into your car and read all those datas. I do not want to convert it back to stock once I supercharged it just to pass smog. So I am here to ask my SoCal brothers if anyone know any smog station that is more lenient with testing? Please DM me if you dont feel like putting it on the forum. Thank you in advance! :tiphat::tiphat:

Search for Kday’s thread in the SoCal forum. He owns a shop in LA that’s “mod friendly” ;)

No such thing. CA smog shops are heavily regulated and audited.

FYI, here is a good blog discussing the intricacies of the CA smog test. It's the functional inspection (the timing and idle speeds), that trips up tuned cars.

Consult with a tuner first. I am N/A with full bolt ons. Full exhaust, intakes, and tune. Passed my smog with no issues. If your SC is a stillen then you don't have an issue from a CARB standpoint. That sticker is important.

yeah... i am afraid that's the case. the legit ones are very strict. they failed my other car one time simply because he couldn't see the timing mark on the pulley... that was after it passed all other tests including the roller/tail pipe tests.

there are some shops do it under the table, but they risk losing the license.

OP - unless you have a reliable source to get the smog cert... it's almost not worthwhile to mod the cars these days. And you have to watch out for those surprise mobile smog inspections on the roads.

I was also debating this being in CA. only option I can come up with is purchasing the carb legal kit from stillen then upgrading to topgunz A2A kit. That way u have carb sticker and just need a mild tune to pass emissions portion. More expensive but only way I could c possibly passing smog

It is gonna be hella costly to buy the stillen and upgrade it to topgunz compare to just getting the topgunz kit for 6k. I hope I can reach someone who can pass it for us.

Print your own sticker? Lol

A member here owns a shop and has been offering his services to the community for many years. Do yourself a favor and reach out to him. If he couldn’t or wouldn’t pass you he’ll let you know straight up.

Yup in San Gabriel Valley.
Or....
If you don't have a tuner take it to Specialty Z. He'll check things out and once he is finished you can take it next door who does smog.

I'd give Seb at Specialty Z a call regarding your tuning, and maybe Stillen regarding the potential CARB issues with Topgunz A2A modification.

My guess is that Seb can revert your cars tune to "stock" for the smog test, and then reinstalls the custom tune thereafter.

:wtf2:

You guys know this is a PUBLIC forum right?

:iagree:

No one is encouraging anything bad. The other one was definitely a jk :)

Hi all,
I'm new to the SoCal board. I lived in NC and the county I lived in did not have emissions so I was able to play with my car however I wanted. Because I modified the car I had to sell it before moving to CA. I now live near Victorville CA and just picked up a 40th anniversary that is bone stock. I am not a stock kind of guy and I'm wanting to make a little more noise. The FI exhaust seems like a good sounding exhaust with great gains. I was wondering if any of you have one and how did it do with smog? I don't understand the sticker thing.
Thanks
Signature is from my old car

When you get your car smog-ed at registration time in Cali you show the person who is doing it for you the CARB sticker and you can leave the equipment in place. You want to make sure the FI exhaust you're talking about is CARB compliant or you'll need to remove it and put your stock one back on to get registered.

Catback exhaust doesn't need to be CARB certified. Only if you're doing headers or cats. Call Fast Intentions, Kevin will verify this info. And yes, I have one.

Ok guys, regardless of the (obsolete) sniff check and CARB legal CAI, CA now (as of end of July 2021) uses OBD hookup to prove vehicles haven't got a non CARB compliant ECU flash/tune.

Many of us are running tunes from UpRev (website specifically states illegal in CA) or EcuTek (not sure about CARB legality) and the "stock map" will still show as a aftermarket flash.. So what is your plan next time smog check comes around? I'm not hearing back from anyone that "helped" with smog pass in the past.. DM's are open if you have.

Anyone with an EcuTek tune know if they have a CARB legal version?

ALSO- possibly related: what shop in SoCal has the cheapest labor if we need exhaust component swaps back to stock?

I can answer one of your questions. Ecutek doesn't have a CARB legal tune. The only legal tune is the factory tune

I find this interesting, Cali sounds like Audi corporate, whenever you go in for service, they pull all your ecu and tcu data and look for evidence of a tune even if you flashed back to stock, they can see out of whack fuel pressure, timing changes etc and then you get the dreaded TD1 code which for VAG guys means your warranty is now kaput and some dealerships won’t even work on your car for fear of running afoul of the epa, carb.

But, with regards to carb and ecu tuned but put back to stock vehicles, what’s to say you were running your car tuned on the track, then reverted back to stock for the street. Even the epa, and carb I think too, says it’s legal to convert a street car into a nonstreet Legal race car/track car. Logically then, what’s to prevent you from reverting it back to being street legal? I’d be curious to see what an attorney would have to say about that.

Then again, Fvck that sh1t, Cali is just too difficult, move or buy a faster car and leave it stock or close to stock. I guess the epa and Cali esp only want rich folks to be able to go fast. So much for the democratization of speed. Classic socialism, working class and middle class get squeezed but the rich stay rich and privileged, (and in this case, faster than all you peasants). :shakes head:

The EPA came out with the new regulations so a street car cannot be converted into a race car. That is the basis for the tune regulation. But yes, you could have an ecutek tune and reflash the factory tune when you go in for smog test but if they see any signs that the ecu has been manipulated, you'll fail and have to have it inspected by a referee.

My suggestion would be to buy a factory ECU and set it to the side. Couple of weeks before inspection, install it. That may would work. FU Cali....

OK it's looking like they will pass it if the ECU is flashed back to stock/OEM specs and is stock on the day of the test. Probably need a week worth of driving after the flash to complete a drive cycle prior to the test to reset all of the OBD readiness monitors.

Who's had Stillen/other CARB-approved CAI's installed and passed a smog inspection in SoCal? I need a referral to a facility that knows what's up.

https://tiremeetsroad.com/2021/07/13...led-smog-test/

As long as you have the Stillen CARB sticker for their cai's, you'll have no issue passing smog

Unfortunately that kind of detail never makes it to the 2nd and 3rd buyers of the gen3's which I think describes most of us.

Anyway guys HMU with the shop recommendations if you have them. Thanks.

Interesting, I could have sworn when I perused the most recent EPA regs that there is still a carve out for converting street cars into non street legal race cars exclusively for the track. SEMA brought a lawsuit a few years ago to get this carve out bc otherwise ALL aftermarket car parts would have become illegal overnight.

Regardless, if EPA or CARB actually was only motivated by wanting cleaner air (which btw I’m all for personally), and not some socialist political agenda to push us away from POVs, then the ONLY thing that matters would be a sniffer test. After all, the only thing that hurts the environment is the tailpipe emissions, not the computer programming in your ecu. That would be a common sense practical application of clean air laws. :shakes head:

Contact stillen, they may be able to send you a new sticker if you can show them your unmolested carb approved cai. Maybe? Worth a shot at least.

I'm 15 minutes from stillen and I've been there numerous times, 90% waste of time. I've had that paperwork before and nobody cared.

I agree with you about emissions. What they should do which makes too much sense that they won't do it is if you modify your car, it should have to pass a sniffer test instead of the obd test. And even if there were some kind of surcharge, that would be fine too. My car still has cats and I run e85. Probably runs cleaner than a stock z.

I know multiple people that have their cai (2nd, 3rd owners) that contacted Stillen and they sent them a sticker without even questioning them. But, yeah, Stillen sometimes isn't real responsive. If you have the sticker, I know a smog shop that will pass you no problem. They're in Torrance

That’s shitty, $0.15 for a sticker vs $3xx (or whatever it costs now) for a new cai, I suppose that’s their motivation. :confused:

Yup, most good tunes that still maintain the cats actually run as clean or cleaner than stock but I suppose it’s not politically correct to “encourage” souping up cars anymore :shakes head:

Flashing back to stock with uprev would apparently delete the tune forever/require full retuning due to uprev software changes over the years, so the solution is a secondary ECU from eBay with stock tune and one of the fobs reprogrammed to match it. Back to the tuned ECU for track days.